Thoughts?

For the past few weeks, it’s been hard to ignore the news coverage regarding the virtual collapse of the American financial industry.  From talk of foreclosures, credit crunches, “predatory lending,” and bailouts, we’ve been inundated with bad news.

Today I read an article which poses the question, “Is God to blame?”  Or more to the point of the article, have preachers of the so-called “Prosperity Gospel” unwittingly driven their flocks into financial ruin?  This Time magazine article entitled, “Did God Want You to Get That Mortgage?” provides an insightful peek into a nefarious and thoroughly wrong-headed teaching which has been running rampant in parts of Christianity.

As a personal note to pastors and those who aspire to teach in the Church, let this be a warning that what is said and taught each week in the pulpit has very real consequences–both for now and eternity.

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For a short and compelling reply to the Prosperity Gospel, see John Piper’s video.

As you can see from the new layout, Post Tenebras Lux isn’t dead just yet.  I’m currently in the process of taking my ordination exams, so stay tuned for some updates, articles, and generally random musings in the near future.

I’ve recently started running after a long athletic hiatus.  This Nike commercial pretty much explains why.

Typical.  When one has nothing to do, nothing happens, but yet when a week is really busy suddenly there is time to blog.  Escapism, perhaps?  This Sunday I’ll be preaching at Christ Our Hope Church in Wake Forest on 1 Peter 5:6-11, which is primarily concerned with hope through suffering.  I don’t anticipate that this will be a “fun” topic to study and preach, but hope that time spent preparing will be sweet and rich food for the soul.  If my sermon should bomb, then at least I will have had time drinking deeply of God’s wonderful promises in this passage.  The Lord knows that I desperately need to hear this.

It seems that there is so much to say of late.  Since my last post my son, Timothy Anselm Jones, was brought into this world.  I’ve often heard new fathers talk about how powerful witnessing the birth of their children is, but never could really sympathize.  When I saw my son for the first time, however, I had to choke back the tears.  Rarely have I ever been struck so speechless.  My son means the world to me now, and I find myself wanting to be there to meet his every need.  It seems that he is taking me (and his mother!) up on this offer, as Janel and I haven’t been sleeping too well.  Young Timothy seems to enjoy spending time with his mom and dad in the very wee hours of the morning, much to our chagrin.

I have been encouraged over the past few weeks in my search for a pastoral call.  God has blessed me with a couple of initial phone interviews for assistant minister positions, which has meant so much to me.  Though I may or may not proceed further in the search process with these congregations, simply having some “bites” has helped to lift my spirits and remind me of the unwavering faithfulness of our God to care for His children (Matt 6:33-34).

Enough escape for now.  It’s time to get back to the sermon prep.

If you even periodically read this blog, you’ll have noticed that nothing of substance has been posted in several months.  Let this fact give testimony for my personal spiritual condition during this time; meager at best.  The Lord is good and merciful, though, and has not let me go.  Praise Him!

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of activity regarding what lies in our future.  I hope to write a narrative of this in the form of a personal testimony in the very near future, but suffice it to say for the moment that I currently have no answers.  Yet what I do know is this:  “There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Immanuel’s veins.  And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains!”  These words penned in that great hymn, “There Is A Fountain,” seem to have been inspired by Zechariah 13:1, which states, “On that day there shall be a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness.”  These words, written over 2500 years ago, are just as true today as the day the ink dried on the parchment.  Right now that Fountain gives life to the dead!  Praise Him!

Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever.  The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.  (John 3:13-14)

My wife and I, sensing the impending doom of our youth once the baby comes in eight weeks, are spending the weekend on a last-minute trip to New York City to visit some old friends.  I’ll be sure to post some thoughts on the trip (and plenty of other subjects) when we return.

Well, here we are.  Just over a month ago, I graduated from seminary.  I am now a Master of Divinity.  Armed with my Divine Masterness, I still work at the YMCA.  When people ask, “What do you do for a living?”, I simply say, “I yell at kids.”  Yep, that education is really paying off.

My life is now that of the functionally unemployed.  By this I mean that while I technically have a job which gives me money, I can’t truly say that I am employed.  In my mind, being employed means that I am engaged, that I am involved; in short, that I care.  I am functionally unemployed.  My usual day goes something like this:

• 5:20am-Arise, shave, shower, get dressed.
• 5:50am-Take the dog out, feed him, eat breakfast.
• 6:00am-Hide from the dog because he is now awake and wants to bite me.
• 7:00-9:00am-Sit with kids at the YMCA.  I yell a lot.
• 9:20am-1:40pm-Take the dog out to pee and poop.  Try to play with the dog.  Get bit by the dog.  Shun the dog.
• 2:00pm-6:00pm-Go back to the YMCA.  Yell even more.
• 6:00-10:00pm-Eat dinner.  Hang out with wife.  Get bit by dog.
• 10:00pm-Go to bed.
• 2:15am-Take dog out to back yard to “Go Potty.”  Shiver in the back yard waiting for him to go.  Marvel at the fact that I am a twenty-six year old man who uses the phrase, “Go Potty.”
• 5:20am-Start all over again

I am waiting to hear from the schools to which I have applied for doctoral studies, and in the meantime, this is my life. Yelling.  Enduring puppy bites.  Hiding from my attack pug.  This is my life.

Janel is getting more and more pregnant every day.  The due date for our son is May 8th and seems to be approaching at an alarming rate.  I am excited and fearful.  Right now I just hope I can get the dog to stop biting so he doesn’t playfully rip my son’s arm off.  This is my life.

 Our living arrangement has changed recently as well.  Since we lived in seminary student housing, we had to leave our apartment after I graduated.  Therefore, a couple in our church was kind enough to rent us their old house for the present while we are waiting to hear back from schools.  Janel and I call this house our redneck house.  Not to say that the house itself is redneck, but a lot of little things contribute to the conferring of this title.  First, the woman who lived in this house before us must have never heard the words “Lysol,” “Comet,” or “Pine-Sol” in her life.  The house sure didn’t look like it.  The carpet was disgusting, dried food was plastered to the walls, and the house reeked of cigarette smoke.  There is a pile of used Camel butts underneath our porch.  At least once a week I find an empty tallboy of Busch or Natty Light in our front yard.  Our neighbor across the street delights in turning the subwoofer in her car to the max and breaking it down to 50 Cent in her driveway.  We have a redneck house.

 This is my life.

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P.S.  Despite the tone of bitterness which permeates this post, life is far better than I deserve.  Life is frustrating at the present, but there is always hope in Christ.  Therefore, I say to both myself and to you, “Take heart!  Christ has come, and He makes all things new.”